I can assure you that I did read the entire manifesto.
What I’d like you to do right now is read the following words very carefully:
You will get access to your very own, personal Central Bank that will enable you to automatically and instantly get all the credit you want, from mortgages to credit cards, without having to pay any interest.
Note especially the words “all the credit you want”. To give someone all the credit he wants is to completely ignore his ability to repay. If one can already get all the credit he wants, then “[his] income, [his] ability to pay it back, and the amount of inflation” don’t matter one bit.
Let’s say I want to buy up everything on Earth. If this manifesto were a reality, then no problem – I can just go to my personal Central Bank, ask it for enough credit to buy up everything on Earth, and it will automatically and instantly give it to me. Now I can (in theory) buy everything on Earth.
Tax policy, level of guaranteed income, etc. don’t matter here. The ability to “automatically and instantly get all the credit [one wants]” trumps everything else. Do you see now?
So we can all sit at the beach and hire each other to be each other’s cabana boys/girls at $50k/year and $18T wealth would STILL be created for you to spread around?
Who’s “we”, comrade? “Citizen Brigades”?
Comrade, how is the above different from me saying that you having sex with your wife is enormously inefficient and that it contributes absolutely no benefit to society? You are so removed from reality – bordering on delusional, god-like, authoritarian – that you even fail to notice how your language uncovers you as such.
JohnnyFive said: “Imagine this scenario. Yourself and your neighbour are living in your utopian world, both collecting the $20k dividend, and both choosing not to work. Then one day your neighbour pops round and says “hey Bertie, I’ve just had a great idea! How about I employ you to clean my house, and you employ me to clean your house. That way we will both be doing the same as before but we will now both be employed and pick up the $30k additional money”.”
You forgot a small detail in your scenario. You have to pay your employees. When you pay your employee $30k in order to get a $30k dvidend, at some point it will sink in that you and your neighbor aren’t getting ahead.
“You forgot a small detail in your scenario. You have to pay your employees. When you pay your employee $30k in order to get a $30k dvidend, at some point it will sink in that you and your neighbor aren’t getting ahead.”
But they would each be receiving a $30k dividend, and just exchanging it with eachother without doing any work!
Atolykos said: "I can assure you that I did read the entire manifesto.
Let’s say I want to buy up everything on Earth. If this manifesto were a reality, then no problem – I can just go to my personal Central Bank, ask it for enough credit to buy up everything on Earth, and it will automatically and instantly give it to me. Now I can (in theory) buy everything on Earth."
I do not believe you read the entire manifesto. I believe you read just one sentence in a bullet point.
But I will answer the question as a serious question anyway.
The world economy produces $60 trillion in goods per year. If you got a 15 year term on a $60 trillion loan to buy up every good and service the world makes in a year, your monthly payment would be $333 billion. When it checks and sees that your monthly income is less than that, your loan would get denied.
z1235 said: “So we can all sit at the beach and hire each other to be each other’s cabana boys/girls at $50k/year and $18T wealth would STILL be created for you to spread around?”
If you can make a profitable business out of hiring cabana boys/girls, it does not matter.
If you are saying you are going to do it to commit fraud, of course that would not be allowed. It would have to be a legitimate business that generates profits, not just a scheme to get the dividend. If you didn’t want to get into the problem of prosecuting dividend cheats, you could just make the dividend equal to 50% of your salary up to $60k. That would make just hiring each other to qualify for the dividend a wash. Or you could just prosecute dividend cheats like you prosecute tax cheats or insurance cheats. If a company never makes a profit (and you would never be able to make a profit if you just trade paychecks), and your income always equaled your payroll that would be a flag.
“Who’s “we”, comrade? “Citizen Brigades”?”
Well, statist, we the people would be the government.
“Comrade, how is the above different from me saying that you having sex with your wife is enormously inefficient and that it contributes absolutely no benefit to society? You are so removed from reality – bordering on delusional, god-like, authoritarian – that you even fail to notice how your language uncovers you as such.”
Statist, what does a person having sex with their spouse have to do with a business deciding to automate? How does some business I don’t own nor control that decides to automate make me delusional?
Statist, do you think you should have the authority to tell a business they are not allowed to automate?
Sounds pretty tyrannical! This plan is about freedom. It gives people greater freedom in their business and lifestyle than the freedom they have currently.
MeSees said: "I do not believe you read the entire manifesto. I believe you read just one sentence in a bullet point.
But I will answer the question as a serious question anyway.
The world economy produces $60 trillion in goods per year. If you got a 15 year term on a $60 trillion loan to buy up every good and service the world makes in a year, your monthly payment would be $333 billion. When it checks and sees that your monthly income is less than that, your loan would get denied."
Hmm. Your manifesto says one thing, yet you say something totally different. You can’t have both.
mattm said: “Hmm. Your manifesto says one thing, yet you say something totally different. You can’t have both.”
Really? Here is what the manifesto says:
In order to extend credit, you need to know two things. You need to know if the borrower can repay the loan. And you need to know how much money is available to lend.
Determining if the borrower has the income to repay a loan in a digital banking system is a simple data lookup. It does not require a human to look over an application. It does not require a credit check. Your financial profile is already digitally available. When you want to borrow money, the computer will just check to see if your current net income is greater than the monthly loan payment. That can be done instantly and digitally for free.
If you have the income to cover your monthly debt payment, you will get approved. If you do not have the income, you will get denied.
What question do you think I asked, besides asking whether you see now?
My monthly payment would be $333 billion, sure. And since I can get all the credit I ever want, I can just take out more credit to make the payments. Income doesn’t matter one bit.
Otherwise, you’re contradicting point #6 of the manifesto. If my loan gets denied, then I can’t get all the credit I ever want.
Please go to the link in my signature. At least listen to the first eight minutes. Please study what Mises means by “the market is a process”. You also should study what is meant by “capital formation” in the Austrian / unhampered market sense.
I’m sure you can find articles about “the market is a process” and “capital formation” on this site. Go ahead, it will be worth the effort. Once you understand these concepts, you will realize that the economic theory you currently support is, well, how can I put it…a big pile of steaming do do.
I admire Meesees’ perseverance but this is so bad, on so many levels…
to elaborate on the easy-30-thousand-dollar-profit scheme, a bogus company immediately employs anyone who gives them a check of $30k, and pays back the employee throughout the year. The employee will at the end, without any real work, receive the $30k back, PLUS $30k from the government. The bogus company makes money on interest. Or since interest rates are 0, they could ask for a check of $31k, who cares, people are getting free checks from the government anyways.
company <—$31,000— employee
after a year
company —$30,000—> employee <—$30,000— government
And since loans are free anyway, the employee can just loan the $31k for himself and be paid off within a year + $29k with near 0 effort. Broken system much? Everyone will be getting $30k a year, without producing anything! Yay! We will have abundance!.. What the other guy said is correct, you will need central planning to establish what jobs are worth paying off or not.
edit:math,grammar
edit2: Oh yeah, since they also earn 20k no matter what, then its 50k for everyone. Yay.
In that case the manifesto should work just fine. No further discussion or debate is required. The forum members are wrong and you are right. Prosperity for everyone, if we would just implement The Plan.
yuberries sad: “to elaborate on the easy-30-thousand-dollar-profit scheme, a bogus company immediately employs anyone who gives them a check of $30k”
And that would be fraud. If your standard of whether a system should be employed or not is if there is the possibility of fraud, we would revert back to the stone age.
Detecting this fraud would be simple since it would be impossible for a company doing this to earn a profit. It would work exactly the same way tax deductions work. Anyone can deduct personal expenses off their taxes if they are used as part of a business.
So there is no stopping anyone from deducting every expense they have to reduce their tax to nothing and just say they have been hopelessly trying to start a business.
But the law is very specific in saying that if you started the business soley to get the deduction, that would be fraud. So virtually nobody does it. And dividend fraud would be easier to detect than illegitimate deductions.
But if you wanted to avoid anyone from gaming the system entirely, so you don’t have to worry about catching people commiting fraud, you can just make the dividend 50% of your salary. That would make it impossible for someone to cheat.
MeSees - “If you are saying you are going to do it to commit fraud, of course that would not be allowed. It would have to be a legitimate business that generates profits, not just a scheme to get the dividend. If you didn’t want to get into the problem of prosecuting dividend cheats, you could just make the dividend equal to 50% of your salary up to $60k. That would make just hiring each other to qualify for the dividend a wash. Or you could just prosecute dividend cheats like you prosecute tax cheats or insurance cheats. If a company never makes a profit (and you would never be able to make a profit if you just trade paychecks), and your income always equaled your payroll that would be a flag.”
This is getting a bit desperate now, I don’t think just making it up as you go along is going to work. Your idea that you have to make a profit leads to further absurdity. It is often the case that when an entrepeneur starts a business venture that they don’t make a profit for several years, or indeed take any income from the business, they simply eat into their capital until they are established. Will you not pay the dividend to exactly the people that deserve it the most because they are neither making a profit nor drawing a salary? How do you differnentiate between a genuine attempt at starting a business and an attempt at picking up the $30k dividend?
Also how do you deal with non-profit organisations? I presume the owner and workers would deserve the $30k dividend? Why not just set up a charity, do some half-hearted fund raising for one hour a week, give it away, and pick up the $30k? Or indeeed simply give away $1k of the $30k you will pick up? You may try to argue that your utopia will be so perfect that there will be no need for charity, but surely there will still be the more fortunate and the less fortunate. Why could charity not be set up for those poor people that are disabled for example? Unless your authoritarian state plans on banning charity?